The OKEx drama has dragged its native utility token, OKB ‘s price to fall to levels not seen since March of this year. OKEx happens to be one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. The Platform’s announcement of a temporary suspension of withdrawals triggered a massive drop in the price of the token, which showed no sign of stopping it.
Over the past week, OKB underwent a decline of nearly 30% from $6.15 to the press time price of $4.31. The latest plunge essentially indicated the fears of many investors that have so far failed to calm down.
OKEx CEO Jay Hao took to Twitter to reassure the community members and tweeted
“All your funds and assets are safe.”
Despite this, the price of the native token continued to suffer, even as the rest of the crypto market recovered after a minor plunge. According to the Crypto Analytical Platform, Glassnode, approximately 200,000 BTCs or 1.1% of the total circulating Bitcoin supply is currently held in OKEx wallets, which amounted to almost $2.3 billion worth of BTC stored in the exchange vaults.
It is important to note that since OKEx happens to be a global exchange, a quick sell-off was expected. However, this was short-lived as the market rebounded. Interestingly, space has been showing significant resilience to big news affecting it. Kucoin hack or the Bitfinex drama has so far failed to sway the price movement which was a positive development for the industry that has been historically influenced by FUDs and FOMOs.
Chinese cops-OKEx Fiasco
On the 16th of October, OKEx informed suspending crypto and digital assets withdrawals. Following this, the platform revealed that it had lost contact with one of its private key holders who was “co-operating” in a Chinese government investigation. According to a report by Caixin, which happens to be a China state-affiliated media platform, the Founder of OKEx and one of the exchange’s private key holders, Xu Mingxing had been taken by police at least a week ago.
The team’s official statement read,
“One of our private key holders is currently cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations where required. We have been out of touch with the concerned private key holder. As such, the associated authorization could not be completed. Pursuant to 8.1 Service Change and Interruption of the Terms of Service, OKEx may change the Service and/or may also interrupt, suspend or terminate the service at any time with or without prior notice.”
OKEx has not come up with any more updates since the official announcement last week.